It had been a year since the once vivacious little red mare had been free to walk across the Crossing. A year since she'd foolishly allowed herself to be drawn into conversation with the handsome Lagoon stallion. A year of solitude and sorrow and seething resentment.

A year since she'd felt anything like herself.

Over time, she'd become less mare and more ghost, a wraith that lurked in the shadows of the Lagoon, avoiding even the well-meaning stallion that tried to "watch" over the mares imprisoned here. She'd given up hope of rescue or salvation, although she'd heartily entertained the idea of Ori coming for her in the early months. She hadn't seen him since Kerr was teeny tiny, and yet she still thought of him often. Hoped that the gentlemanly stallion that had so warmed her heart would one day come back for her.

But he had not. Nor had Zevulun. Or Enya.

Heck, not even Vadim himself had come back for her once he'd managed to drive her into this hellish swamp. She'd been carted here and then left to her own devices with no idea why she was here. It would be one thing if there had been someone that wanted her here, but it was painfully obvious that she was just a body to be collected like some fucked up form of currency. A statistic, rather than a soul. It had burned in the beginning, but now she felt numb to the idea. It didn't matter what she was, only that she continued to be, whether she liked it or not.

The roan moved out from beneath the fitful shadows of sad-looking tree, into the wan light of a dreary autumn day, her once vibrantly pink coat dulled by the addition of mud and leaves, courtesy of her tendency to hide. She was not skeletal, but nor did she appear as rotund and healthy as she had when she'd first arrived, appearing now more lean and wiry than well fed and content. There was a wariness to her eyes that had not been there before, a meanness she had never needed to cultivate before her imprisonment. Wordless, she lowered her head to graze, her red ears twisted back against her poll.